In the early 1990s, I was employed at Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. I was part of an office of seven people. Over the years, we became very familiar with each other, sharing stories about our families and personal challenges. We grew to be like a family.

As families do, we became trusting and comfortable enough with each other to discuss difficult topics, such as race. Since we were composed of both black and white people, we had some interesting perspectives to share.

One of my colleagues shared a personal sentiment with me that some people may find surprising. After several years of knowing each other, one day she said, “Greg, when I first met you, all I could honestly see when I we initially talked was a black man. At first I could not get past the idea that you were black. Now that I’ve gotten to know you, all I see is you as a person.”

Expounding, she clarified that her initial perspective of me was negative because she believed the unfavorable societal stereotypes about black people. I was not offended, but instead appreciated her sincerity. Because she had prejudged me solely on the color of my skin, it took her a long time and much exposure to my personhood to see me as just a person.

Although I never tried to assimilate to what I thought she would have found comfortable, she still saw and appreciated me for being myself. What she finally saw in me was contrary to what she was led to believe about me before she actually knew me.

What a person is taught and led to believe, particularly as a child, is nearly impossible to change. In fact, Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he grows old, he shall not depart from it.” It is similar to permanently bending a tree when its branches are young and tender. When a tree grows old, it will break before it will bend.

My friend had unknowingly referred to the “spiritual and moral lag” that negative stereotypes generate, creating an immature, childlike predisposition for racial static, a burden that many people of different races never transcend.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about this lag in his Nobel Prize lecture, delivered on Dec. 11, 1964. He said, “This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man’s chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man’s ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty and war.”

Almighty God gave a dream to Dr. King for him to reach, teach and preach for God’s glory and for our betterment. Our pride and prejudice, which are nothing more than fear and cowardice masquerading as power, continue to overrule God’s command for us to love each other — not just people who look, think and speak like us, but everybody.